Community | August 01, 2010 | 74 comments

Australians are learning what it means to have creationists in the classroom

source: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/australians_are_learning_what.php

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toyotabedzrock
Queensland is allowing fundamentalist Christians to teach religious instruction classes in the public schools — and, as we might have predicted, they are teaching nonsense.

Students have been told Noah collected dinosaur eggs to bring on the Ark, and Adam and Eve were not eaten by dinosaurs because they were under a protective spell.

Set Free Christian Church's Tim McKenzie said when students questioned him why dinosaur fossils carbon dated as earlier than man, he replied that the great flood must have skewed the data.

A parent of a Year 5 student on the Sunshine Coast said his daughter was ostracised to the library after arguing with her scripture teacher about DNA.

"The scripture teacher told the class that all people were descended from Adam and Eve," he said.

"My daughter rightly pointed out, as I had been teaching her about DNA and science, that 'wouldn't they all be inbred'?

"But the teacher replied that DNA wasn't invented then."

Creationists are crackpots and liars — they simply don't belong at all in positions of responsibility in the public schools, because they are going to intentionally miseducate. What do the education administrators in Queensland say? Why, that students can "opt out" of these classes. That isn't the issue, of course — why are the schools investing scarce resources to give religious extremists and lunatics a platform in the public schools at all?
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74 comments // Australians are learning what it means to have creationists in the classroom

  • dariusvons
    • 0
      dariusvons  

    • why does anybody give this blatently antifactual crap any sort of chance in education? oh yeah thats right, because public education is just a glorified daycare program.

    • 1 year ago
  • Coolie20
    • 0
      Coolie20  

    • this story doesn't sound very realistic...I don't think anyone in the right mind would answer to those questions like this, acting as if children are just imbeciles or something...

    • 1 year ago
  • dariusvons
    • +2
      dariusvons  
    • Coolie20:

      have you ever been to sunday school? yeah, they spew crap like this, yeah they assume children are stupid, and in fact rely on the fact that children usually don't know enough to contradict anything the "teacher" is telling them.

    • 1 year ago
  • Coolie20
    • 0
      Coolie20  
    • dariusvons:

      YES! actually i have been to sunday school!!! but I was usually busy focusing on the coloring time to listen to what they were teaching us...but I do remember Jesus. He's the only one I've kept in mind since, not anyone's theology or perspective on science or what not.

    • 1 year ago
  • sarasarasara
    • 0
      sarasarasara  

    • There needs to be a class where students can learn about ALL religions. Like, their beliefs, practices, and structure.

      I am happy to hear that the students could "opt out", but this is getting out of hand. Religion shouldn't be in the public education system... it should be in a Sunday school.

      "But the teacher replied that DNA wasn't invented then." --- WOW. :/

    • 1 year ago
  • alexandrek
  • dariusvons
  • sarasarasara
    • +3
      sarasarasara  
    • alexandrek:

      "Queensland is allowing fundamentalist Christians to teach religious instruction classes..."

      By teaching creationism, they would also teach most of the basics of Christianity. So, therefore, those students may only learn about that specific religion (no matter how skewed the perspective is). That's what my point was. If you're going to teach ANYTHING about ANY religion, you should just teach it all about all of them.

    • 1 year ago
  • jubal
  • Darevalo
  • GISchmo
  • vicgal
  • Scott_Pilgrim
  • Kaplow820
  • alexandrek
  • Kaplow820
    • +2
      Kaplow820  
    • alexandrek:

      yea seriously, i thought school was where you were supposed to LEARN, not be brainwashed. And to think that adults actually believe that shit, that's just freakin s.a.d. and unbelievable.

    • 1 year ago
  • Kaveh_Kompani
  • eden49
    • +4
      eden49  
    • Kaveh_Kompani:

      ..."PRIME MINISTER, Julia Gillard says she has no intention of pretending to believe in God to attract religiously-inclined voters.

      Former prime minister Kevin Rudd was a regular at Canberra church services and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is known as a devout Catholic.

      In contrast, Ms Gillard says that while she greatly respects other people's religious views, she does not believe in God.

      Ms Gillard has been quizzed on personal topics including her attitude to religion and her relationship with her partner during interviews this morning.

      She says does not go through religious rituals for the sake of appearance.

      "I am not going to pretend a faith I don't feel," she said.

      "I am what I am and people will judge that.

      "For people of faith, I think the greatest compliment I could pay to them is to respect their genuinely held beliefs and not to engage in some pretence about mine."

      ...

    • 1 year ago
  • galwayman
    • +2
      galwayman  
    • eden49:

      If that's the case why are these Christian nut jobs being allowed to teach these poor children this crap? There isn't one ounce of truth in anything they say! School is for learning not to be forced into hearing a belief system that has no place among the educated and sane,takes all right of self determination and free thought away,and convince some kids to accept the nut job world view! the people of your country should rise up in outrage and put a stop to this child abuse!

    • 1 year ago
  • ArchDruid
  • eden49
    • 0
      eden49  
    • ArchDruid:

      ...FYI..What role does the Queen play in Australia...

      ..."None. She has no actual Authority to influence the decisions of the Australian federal system of government. The only part she plays is a ceremonial one associated with our constitution as titular head of state via the Governor general who is appointed by the Australian parliament....

      ...cheers, Eden...

    • 1 year ago
  • Dejan_Croatia
  • eden49
    • 0
      eden49  
    • Image

    • ...after much site hopping, these 3 churches are on the Gold Coast in Queensland...map shows where they originate from...

    • 1 year ago
  • galwayman
    • +2
      galwayman  
    • eden49:

      caro this is so bad for the children forced to undergo this brainwashing by the nut jobs it could very well cause kids problems for years to come! How could this be allowed? How could any sane school district allow this mental abuse of children by those who are clearly psychotic and delusional? It really pisses me off!

    • 1 year ago
  • eden49
    • +2
      eden49  
    • galwayman:

      ...I totally agree...it's part of the HIM organisation, which is adventist...it just stems back to the fact that anyone can set up a church etcetera and preach what they like...I know it's BS, and most Ozzies would know it's BS...actually, it's quite amusing that they're situated on the Gold Coast, one of the prolifically hedonistic holiday venues in OZ...

    • 1 year ago
  • unimatrix0
    • +5
      unimatrix0  

    • Actually, allowing Christians to expose their superstitious ignorance is a good idea - they simply reveal how preposterous the Christian world view is, and discredit the whole ball of wax, which is a good thing.

    • 1 year ago
  • dtringas
    • 0
      dtringas  
    • Image
    • unimatrix0:

      http://southparkstudios.com

      not to defend the absurd idea that since a scientific fact simply hasn't been thought of means it isn't part of the way the world works; but an all inclusive stereotype that all Christians' world view is ridiculous is, well... stupid. Many that would label themselves Christians do not take the book of the religion as literally as the extreme dare I say... baptists. As a student of history and constant student of world religions, I realize that mankind, in their eternal game of "telephone" , seem to get religious translations, writings, and "talks with god" backwards and almost certainly make them self serving or for egotistical purposes. On the other hand, how is there anything wrong with abiding by a code of non violent ethics to encourage an honorable life of peace and love for your fellow man.
      [please note I said "NON VIOLENT" ethics]

      Everybody knows man has been at war even before the installation of religious idealism [recall the south park episode of the warring atheists; i recommend that you watch it if you haven't, you can watch it for free on the southparkstudios website , i think its one of the more recent seasons.] We seem to just love to kill and oppress each other. One of the first precepts of ecology, is that fundamentally, in war, no animal benefits. That is in food, energy, health or prosperity, but I digress.

      That being said I agree that everyone should be exposed to Christian extremists to see how ridiculous it is to accept any ideal at face value without asking questions and coming to your own conclusions. -DT (steps off soap box)

    • 1 year ago
  • dreamsenvoy
  • artemis6
  • ColleenRW
  • littlwarrior
    • 0
      littlwarrior  

    • OMG this is so ridiculous i dont even know what to say. Undo this now australia, you give those right wing nutjobs an inch and you can never have it back and you will regret it. DNA wasnt invented, fucking tards. Keep the bullshit insanity to sunday school.

    • 1 year ago
  • device80
  • wellhunggimp
  • galwayman
    • 0
      galwayman  

    • I thought OZ had some sense! Forcing kids to learn this phony religious crap will only confuse them! teach them science that is where the facts lie,not in phony religious dogma! these So called Christians are as great a danger to freedom as Islam represents! BAN ALL ORGANIZED RELIGION! Phony fairy tale crap is all it is,and it should be stamped out like the plague it is! Burn the churches! Burn all so called "holy" Books! organized religion wouldn't know the truth if it hit them on the head! Children Shouldn't be taught this nonsense!

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • +2
      EthicalVegan  
    • galwayman:

      You cannot possibly mean ALL Australians, now do you?

      I have any number of friends (all of them super intelligent) from Down Under, and not a single one of them would/could back up this latest nonsense. Be careful, as you just can't generalize like that.

    • 1 year ago
  • eden49
  • Greg_G
    • -6
      Greg_G  
    • Image

    • I am a Christian. And a creationist with a Biology/Geology degree. It is unfortunate that uneducated individuals like the case above are even let close to the educational community when there are so many knowledgeable, science oriented people all over the world. I won't try to answer all objections here.
      Is there evidence of a One-Parent set beginning? Better take a look at the studies: http://biology.suite101.com/article.cfm/who_is_mitochondrial_eve
      I will not dispute the old-age vs young-age earth. Scientists work under the theory of uniformitarianism... all processes then are the same as they are now, no allowance for catastrophism. A true student of the past needs to look at the alternatives for looking at the same data. For instance: http://www.icr.org/ .
      DNA not invented then? Hogwash! Consider two people, made new, perfectly and specifically by an omniscient, all-powerful God. In-breeding would not be a problem for individuals with perfect DNA.
      The arguments go on and on. And, unfortunately, most people don't look into what they have been told. I encourage all to get all the FACTS, (both evolutionists and creationists have the same biological and geological facts, they just look at them differently) and then look at the interpretations.

      Separation of church and science? Bah, humbug. Either Genesis, the story of creation as God relates it, is true and thus the Bible is to be trusted; or Genesis is a nice story and so is the rest of the Bible. Search it out!! Your final determination about the Truth in the Bible will determine your eternal destiny.
      Think about it: http://www.notreligion.com/

    • 1 year ago
  • Ian_Judge_Lord
    • +3
      Ian_Judge_Lord  
    • Greg_G:

      Just a few questions concerning one of your the "points" you attempted vainly to make.
      What exactly might "Perfect" Deoxyribonucleic acid be made up of?
      What exactly might "Perfect" Genes be?
      What exactly might a human being with "Perfect" genetics look like?
      What Race might they be?
      What Ethnicity might they belong to?
      What shade of Skin tone might they have?
      What Color Eyes might they have?
      What color hair might they have?

      Also, and i suppose the most significant question of all; is this:
      How would ANY of that make such "Perfect" First human being immune to the detrimental effects of over Six Millennia (6,000 years ago according to the Young-Earth CreatintelligentDesigntionists) of inbreeding, with brothers marrying sisters, fathers marrying daughters, and mothers marrying sons (all included in the Old Testament of the Bible alone)?

    • 1 year ago
  • CalPal
  • SarahAna
    • +2
      SarahAna  

    • This is very strange. The creation museum seems strange to me as well. In Sunday School when I was little, they didn't even talk about dinosaurs or try to make me think that dinosaurs walked around with men. I actually loved reading about dinosaurs and paleolithic man and how life evolved when I was little, but I separated Church and Science in my mind: Church was something my parents made me go to in which I colored in pictures of Nebuchadnezzar (whoever the hell that was) and Noah, and Science was reading books and gaining real knowledge.

      By having that separation of Church and Science in my mind, I always knew Science was real and proven, while Christianity didn't make a lot of sense and I thought my parents and everyone in Church were all in on it, that they all knew these things that they believed were silly and they didn't actually have faith. Now these people come in trying to encourage blind faith, an idea revered in Christianity. And they try to prove Christianity by making unfounded connections for why none of the creation myths make sense.

      I just wonder if everyone thinks that too, that they actually doubt their faith but they don't want to admit that their beliefs don't make sense.

    • 1 year ago
  • blaino
  • UtopianSky
  • randallr01
  • EmperorThan
  • EmperorThan
  • alexandrek
  • wicaco
    • +1
      wicaco  
    • EmperorThan:

      Haha, I how they explain variation in skin color with "white people are just albino black people" but they contradict it almost immediately with the suspiciously pale-faced Adam and Eve.

    • 1 year ago
  • Mark701
    • +4
      Mark701  
    • EmperorThan:

      Wow, Eve was hot!

      Seriously, we should all take a lesson from this insanity. The Christian right equals an intellectual dead zone, and an arrogant one to boot. I never thought I see the day when a group of people would become so stupid that they'd feel comfortable publicly displaying that stupidity.

      These are real lost souls. Disconnected from reality and demanding we retreat to the spiritual middle ages based on their belief in a book written by men, who didn't know the earth orbited the sun. It's one of the most bizarre cultural phenomenon I've ever seen. A whole section of society willfully devolving back into ignorance to avoid the sheer terror of discovering that their religion doesn't have all the answers. Frightened children all.

    • 1 year ago
  • s_peak
    • +1
      s_peak  
    • alexandrek:

      For the same reason companies spend money on advertising. They need to get customers... I mean... "followers"... somehow. The church is full of salesmen because it is one of the most powerful and rich enterprises in the world. Like many companies, they protect their investment by bending the truth.

    • 1 year ago
  • ozoneocean
    • +2
      ozoneocean  

    • "creationism will be offered for discussion in the subject of ancient history, under the topic of "controversies""

      So it's not taught as science... But it's still very disappointing that it's there at all. Queensland has always been a bit strange that way so it's not entirely surprising, Queenslanders are weird people.

      If creationism is to be taught at all in a school (any school) it should be taught in a social studies class because it's part of the mythologies of our culture. And then it should be straight, dry, traditional creationism, without added crap about fossil records being wrong or dinosaurs on the ark -if they do that they may as well add some stuff about giant battle robots and maybe some hardcore porn just for fun. It's not science, it's not fiction, it's not history, but it IS social cultural history.

    • 1 year ago
  • UtopianSky
    • +4
      UtopianSky  
    • ozoneocean:

      And, they should add other creation myths- the Hindu creation stories, and since it's Australia, the Aboriginal creation myths.

      All of the myths should be treated equally to all the other myths, but science should stand alone, unmolested.

    • 1 year ago
  • s_peak
    • +2
      s_peak  
    • UtopianSky:

      yeah. How is it at all fair and unbiased to teach one religion and forget to mention the other ones? There are, after all, hundreds of religions... and possibly thousands if you count each sect. Why don't we teach the kids about the heaven's gate cult? They had a belief, too!

    • 1 year ago
  • eden49
  • estee_arie
  • Saladin
    • +9
      Saladin  

    • Surprised they were dumb enough to let them try.

      I guess that old 90's stupidity, "everyone's point of view is equally valid," didn't die out in Australia yet.

      The bible says that outer space is filled with water, it claims men fought with stars, it says that if you paint stripes on a goat it will bear striped children. It teaches that the earth is a flat disk surrounded by a crystal dome and that we are the center of not just the solar system, but the whole universe.

      For christ's sake, it says pi is a round number.

      It's retarded to think that something like that has ANY validity at all.

      Sorry, the holy books are WRONG about damn near everything, back to front.

      Teach science in science class, teach bullshit at sunday school.

    • 1 year ago
  • ozoneocean
  • EmperorThan
    • +5
      EmperorThan  
    • Saladin:

      And the only parts of the whole books that aren't wrong are the only parts all of the followers seem to miss; THE MESSAGE.

      "OMFG did you hear Jesus can walk on water!?!?!"

      -I think you slightly missed his point entirely, he preached forgiveness of your transgressors...-

      "Yeah fuck that shit, did you hear he can turn water into wine too?!?!"

    • 1 year ago
  • Einsam_Data_Old
  • timetide
  • ayipis
    • -11
      ayipis  

    • kinda like what happened with global warming..

      they sat on their frozen asses and handed an award to a man who sold them them that they are getting hot.

    • 1 year ago
  • ozoneocean
    • +5
      ozoneocean  
    • ayipis:

      What are you on?

      The only way this is like Global warming is that scientists who are climate experts warn us about it and crazy stubborn nutters with their own strange agendas try to convince people it's not a real thing- so climate change deniers ARE indeed exactly like creationists. ...and most creationists are climate change deniers.

    • 1 year ago
  • EmperorThan
  • EmperorThan
    • +1
      EmperorThan  
    • ozoneocean:

      I've noticed there's always a good solid 19 or 20% of people in any nationwide survey that all seem to believe in the exact same thing, be it banning gay marriage, teaching creationism in school, denying global warming is happening, etc.

      We call that 20% the 'statistical likelihood of stupidity in the species' also known as the Bell Curve.

    • 1 year ago
  • dalistuff
  • ayipis
  • shakes_head
    • +3
      shakes_head  
    • ayipis:

      that's a pretty ignorant generalization about cannabis consumers. there are plenty of denizens of mental slavery, the very least of which is an herb. put down your d.a.r.e. pamphlet and read about the history of cannabis prohibition, or how hemp has been and would be a boon to human health and progress.

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • ozoneocean
  • EmperorThan
  • UtopianSky
  • eden49
    • +2
      eden49  
    • UtopianSky:

      ...besides weed, what in the hell does this whole thread have anything to do with Australians as a whole...just a very small bunch of dickheads, and not indicative of the majority of Auzzies' lifestyle at all...and I think I might have a better insight, since I effin' live here...

    • 1 year ago
  • eden49
  • toyotabedzrock
  • Jolosturo
    • +4
      Jolosturo  

    • OMG! It's a shame that crazy people are allowed to travel and spread their stupidity. Is there nowhere free from this nonsense and ignorant propaganda????

    • 1 year ago
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